The Obama campaign is having a blast while Republicans stumble all around them. In the past week, the campaign has pushed out a satirical contraception permission slip to attack the GOP over the Blunt amendment and responded to Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s decision to resurrect the birther issue by posting the theme song to the The X-Files on Twitter.
At a fundraiser Thursday, President Obama himself got in on the act.
From the pool report coverage of an Obama fundraiser in New York City:
POTUS also added a joke about the GOP debates. “We’re thinking of just airing these as advertisements — without commentary. Here you go, this is what they said some time ago.”
It’s the kind of Obama swagger you didn’t see, say, back before Iowa. Now that even conservatives like George Will suggesting the state of the primary field does not bode well for Republican chances to win the White House, the Obama camp is starting to reveal a spring in its step.
The campaign says it is still expecting a fight. But they’re clearly happy to see the GOP primary — and its strange digression into social issues — continue.
“We certainly take nothing for granted, we think it’s going to be a close and competitive election,” Obama campaign spokesperson Ben LaBolt told TPM on a conference call Friday. LaBolt said the GOP primary is “a Republican field that’s really been a party talking to itself.”
Polls show all the battling over contraception and other social issues hasn’t gone too well for Romney, who Democrats clearly still expect will be the nominee. LaBolt said the Republicans are are turning off the viewers who matter, a development the Obama camp is happy to sit back and watch.
“If you watched the debate last week, there was barely any mention of jobs and the economy, it was more a conversation about how the Republican Party defines itself today,” LaBolt said. “You know, those aren’t the sorts of issues that voters are focused on.”
